Poems

ON BREAK

I leave my office in the library
and walk around campus
travel concrete paths
past buildings of iron and brick
and greet the trees along the way,
learn their names,
watch the light and wind
through their leaves and branches
summer, winter, spring, and fall.

When it is too cold to go outside
on bitter winter days
I walk inside
where the trees are books
leaning on each other
beside my path
filled with colors, smells, sounds,
and they are dead
until someone opens one up
to read it.